Genre hounds stoked by the Sundance hype would surely seek it out, but Eggers extraordinary debutabout a family of early American pilgrims who get banished to the wrong forestwould never be given the opportunity to meaningfully connect with its audience and worm its way into the culture. Art and Experience : John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. Jeanie Igoe (production, A24): None of us really knew what we were doing. We want to go two thousand screens. Fenkel: Do you have to be a genius to do Sofia Coppolas movie, or Harmonys? Fenkel: One thing we notice is now people are saying, Oh, good job. Probably the best place to screen-test the movie. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations. I just started talking. (He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Supporting Actor). That company and the old Miramax and Fox Searchlight had a real brand and a hold on their audience. Fenkel: We may have had to fire a fake intern for that. I think when we started [2016], it was another, like, what Id consider a building year. From It Follows to The Babadook, these horror gems didnt have blockbuster budgets. A24, originally a small independent movie distributor, has quickly transformed into one of the most respected and successful names in cinema production. Rather than carpet-bomb the whole country with prohibitively expensive television ads, A24 partnered with a social marketing agency called theAudience in order to more precisely reach its target demographic. The bottom line is that there were 677 new releases in 2013, and that number is only getting bigger. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Activity. We sit in. Gif excerpt from the film Slow West via A24 Films. Its coveted because six of the past seven winners were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and the harrowing, emotional Room looks poised to follow in their footsteps after it opens in October. Zoe Beyer (marketing, A24): Spring Breakers had a whole Oscar campaign. Or a screenwriter. So what is an A24 film? Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. We were about to have two movies [Ex Machina and While Were Young] with him. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Fenkel: I stare straight ahead. In 2013, A24 released their first five films: Sally Potters Ginger & Rosa, Harmony Korines Spring Breakers, Sofia Coppolas The Bling Ring, James Ponsoldts The Spectacular Now, and Roman Coppolas A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, starring Charlie Sheen. Harmony Korine (director, Spring Breakers): They have balls. [11][12], In September 2013, A24 entered a $40 million deal with DirecTV Cinema, where DirecTV Cinema would offer day-and-date releases 30 days prior to a theatrical release by A24; Enemy was the first film to be distributed under the deal. It was like being in some kind of arena. Producer: Safety Not Guaranteed. What are you working on? I love Moonlight, said as much before it won the Oscar, and Ill say it again now - I showed it to my daughters early and they loved it. The company may be a lovely acquisition target for a buyer seeking an arthouse pipeline,but A24 is still building itself as a brand one that is synonymous with quality. You could tell that they wanted to be great. In the last few years, there have been a spate ofindie horror films that have broken into the mainstream. . [27], A24 distributes and produces around 18 to 20 films a year. I just Signed on as producer beginning with the third season. It premiered at Sundance in January, where it deservedly won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Usually you talk to somebody and they tell you all the reasons they shouldnt make something, and why its so difficult. Fenkel: I was at the Union Square theater, and they couldnt have had enough theaters. But its present success and continued survival are dependent on a massive deal that seems to directly contradict everything thats made the company so special. I think he was in Hawaii on his honeymoon or something while it was all going down, so I felt terrible. Hodges teamed with Daniel Katz and David Fenkel to launch the company, which is based in New York City. I think we lost control. But we liked them. Its DirecTV/A24 release grossed $229,094 and never played on more than 54 screens. A24 went on a spending spree and released 11 movies in their second year of operation. And it was the hair and makeup people. In 2016, A24 expanded into original production with Moonlight. It also put out some of its weirder and most singular movies to date: Trey Edward Shultss micro-budget family drama Krisha; Swiss Army Man, in which Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse; and Yorgos Lanthimoss romantic tragedy, The Lobster. In February, Robert Eggerss The Witch, which A24 bought at Sundance for one million dollars, made $40 million and became the companys highest grossing film to date (Moonlight has since surpassed it). Franco: I hope they dont get too big that they forget what got them started. BREAKING: John Hodges, one of the founding members of A24, has announced his departure from the production and distribution studio to focus on future opportunities. Aizenberg: I remember that Sunday we all got on the phone and were like, Were going over a thousand screens.. I Was Like, Fuck Yeah!Barry Jenkins. And the guy asked me, Is there anything we might find suspicious in there? I said, Theres an art piece inside in the shape of a gun. And literally the entire security department was like, What is wrong with you? Long story short, it made it through. I liked the fact that they had never made a doc. Ali Herting (acquisitions and development, A24): We were never gonna get Place Beyond the Pines. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. Theres music labels I can think of as well. Fenkel: We knew we were releasing the movie. I dunno! I mean, it made sense at the time. Prior to joining Jax in 2019, John was a founding partner of A24, where he helped oversee acquisition and distribution on some of the company's roster of more than 70 films, which includes Spring Breakers, Ex Machina, Amy, Lady Bird, and Best . When I was explaining to people what I was doing, it felt like a political campaign. If anything, it was the bastard stepchild at that point. The Bling Ring provoked Emma Watson to cast off the shadow of Hermione Granger and step into the pink Juicy Couture sweatpants of a spoiled teen criminal in contemporary Hollywood. We want to hear from you! Since then his contributions to growing the company have been invaluable and we cant wait to see what he does next, said A24 in a statement. And we still have a great relationship now. It was crazy. That didnt come with any veto rights or cut rights, Abrahamson told me. That was 2013. Katz: It was early in the relationship. Fenkel: Look at The Witch. All rights reserved. And that was our communication for booking theaters. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Fenkel: Well, of course Selena Gomez in a bikini worked. In 2012, Fenkel, Hodges, and Katz left their jobsat Oscilloscope, Big Beach, and Guggenheim Partners, respectivelyto start A24. Halfway through the campaign, I think it went the other way. Since the small blast of trade articles that greeted the companys inception, theyve remained unusually quiet. Really? But I remember vividly that they had chosen some specific movies, one of which was Under the Skin. He recently profiled Conor McGregor for GQ Style. As of April 2022[update], twenty-seven episodes had been released. But then when we started to screen the film at Sundance and saw the audience reactions, it was clear that there was a much larger audience for this movie than any of us thought. Where its like: Im in. Were always cognizant of trying to sell the film by not selling it, said marketing exec Jesse Patrone-Werdiger, speaking to A24s rare faculty for promoting around the product its trying to push, shifting the tectonic plates of culture in the hopes of giving rise to a mountain. A24 is cool and I know they say great things about Miramax, which makes me feel proud and old at the same time. Wanna follow A24 (company)'s net worth? All Rights Reserved. And I think theyre creating a kind of renaissance in filmmaking. With Hodges leaving, the. Its super inspiring. Far left, from left: A24 founders David Fenkel, John Hodges, and Daniel Katz. Of the 174 million impressions that the movie made in the weeks leading up to its debut, 49 percent were organic, meaning that you were just as likely to learn about a new Harmony Korine film from your weird aunts personal page as you were from a promoted update in your news feed. Sasha Lane (actress, American Honey): They were like, You guys are who you are and were not going to change that. No one had to be perfected for anything. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. Fenkel: You dont know how to control yourself. So I just called the guy. Were good. Your vision is incredible.. Login to view all information @ On the most literal level, an A24 film is budgeted from anywhere between $1 million (Obvious Child) and $20 million (A Most Violent Year). I think my sisters still only seen one A24 movie: Spring Breakers. I asked him what he wants his company to be. I woke up one morning to an e-mail from Daniel that was sent at three in the morning: Can you go to Pittsburgh? I come into the office, and there are interns running around like in some crazy factory. And the interns are running around trying to find a glassblower. Meanwhile, A24 has already been building an ark. Hodges, who previously served as head of production at the indie production company Big Beach (Little Miss Sunshine), did not announce any immediate career plans. Fenkel: And we had a booker at the time, this big old school guy, gentle giant, hes a sweet guy, but kind of a gangster, but levels of, like, cool gangster. Im dying. Franco: All the distributors knew it was great. Daniel Radcliffe (actor, Swiss Army Man): Ive had experiences on films in the past where they get bought by somebody who sees something in it that they like, which is nice, but it also happens to be notand is sometimes antithetical towhat the people who made the film wanted it to be. But in a shift from its typical way of doing business, A24 acquired Room based on its script, before shooting had even begun. And weve been so consistent about thanking them. We are thrilled to have someone of Johns pedigree join the Jax Media team and lead our expansion into the film world, Jax Media partners Tony Hernandez, Lilly Burns, John Skidmore, and Brooke Posch said in a joint statement. But the back end was so crazy. No one in the office is older than 42, including co-founders John Hodges, David Fenkel, and Daniel Katz. [16] The company, with cooperation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan & Co. and SunTrust Banks, also raised its line of credit from $50 million to $125 million a month later to build upon its operations. And then you meet Barry and hear Barry talk, and its like, Of course! It was also that A24 was releasing these films not with a sigh and a shrug, but with panache, style, and humor: bright neon colors, guerrilla marketing tactics, and in the case of James Francos Britney Spears-loving gangster character from Spring Breakers, an actual Oscar campaign. And The Place Beyond the Pines. Judging by the fact that the trailer racked up more than 3 million views in its first week online, the crowds are ready with their pitchforks. I dont think it was related to her professional career. I thought it would get a distributorI thought it was good enough for that. Set in 1630s New England, a family is banished from their village and starts to unravel when their baby vanishes. John has been a trusted partner who helped conceive A24 and for that we will always be grateful, noted A24. Although A24's actual net worth is not known. Our site's data suggests A24's net worth to be about $1.89 million. Its first release was A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III in 2013, followed by Spring Breakers later that year. Like I had glandular problems. In the last 18 months alone,along with Room and The End of the Tour,it has pioneered the abortion comedy with Obvious Child, scored a commercial hit with the seductive thriller Ex Machina, released one of the most daring science fiction films this side of 2001 in Under the Skin, and driven the most lucrative documentary in years with Asif Kapadias Amy Winehouse portrait, Amy. Yes, Scream VI Marketing Is Behind the Creepy Ghostface Sightings Causing Scares Across the U.S. David Oyelowo, Taylor Sheridan's 'Bass Reeves' Series at Paramount+ Casts King Richard Star Demi Singleton (EXCLUSIVE), Star Trek: Discovery to End With Season 5, Paramount+ Pushes Premiere to 2024. We werent a fully formed company yet. Jenkins: What theyre doing is so fluid and free-form that two years from now, it could be quite different than it was two years ago. John has been a trusted partner who helped conceive A24 and for that we will always be grateful, noted A24 in a statement. Likewise, A24 loves Sundance acquisition Mississippi Grind, a tremendously appealing riff on Robert Altmans California Split that co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn as compulsive gamblers on a road trip to nowhere. Jeremy Kleiner (producer, Plan B, Moonlight): It wasnt like, Oh, this is low-hanging fruit, lets grab on to this one. It was a passionate embrace of the movie. Films distributed by A24 ended up getting nominated for seven Academy Awards that year, including Best Picture (Room), Actress (Brie Larson), Documentary (Amy), and Original Screenplay (Ex Machina). If its gonna be released the same way by another company, we usually dont go after it. (Blindsided teens, many of whom had been intrigued at the thought of seeing former Disney star Selena Gomez in a more mature performance, assailed the Internet with complaints that they had paid to see the Worst Movie Ever Made.) Fenkel: Charlie Sheen was in this interesting place where maybe he was on the verge of a comeback, and Im saying that with a straight face. The photo has been replaced. Aizenberg: There was a week in January where we dropped the trailer of Spring Breakers. The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement. Filmmakersoften the toughest audiences for their own films marketing campaignsrecognize the companys real excitement for their films. You want to have a grown-up conversation about the best way to get your work to the people who would spend money to see it, Abrahamson concludes. So whos to say that, you know, A24 wont become Warner Brothers five years from now? This is a growing company, not a struggling one. And we just hounded him. The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement.. January, February, we didnt know we had The Lobster. Key grip. At the time of my visit, however, A24 still looked more like a startup than a movie studio, and you could find the countrys fastest-growing film companys actual HQ only by following the flimsy paper signs that had been taped up along the 17th-floor hallway outside its headquarters. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges all got together in 2012 and decided to make their late night yammerings a reality. Three were winners. Lets run there. A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. Gif excerpt from the film Room via A24 Films. Im thrilled to be joining the team at Jax, Hodges said. Aizenberg: I think we knew we had something at South By. Your eyes dont gloss over James Franco as a trap music Jesus. Korine: I could tell that they were on some new shit, you know? We wanted to deliver in a meaningful way. Its like, oh, this person has no idea what Moonlight is, and it just won Best Picture. First movies gonna be so exciting! And I remember everyone came back from that test screening. The photo has been replaced. Put it on screens. They dont have the personality of movie executives. Kleiner: They had the movie, I want to say, 22, 23 weeks in theatrical release? I dont mean it that way. Starring Kate Berlant + John Early, "A24 Open Doors For Film Production, Finance, And Production - Movie City News", "The rise and rise of A24, a champion of storytelling on screen", "A24 Teams With Plan B & Adele Romanski To Produce And Finance Barry Jenkins', "A24 Tops All Other Single Movie Studios With 18 Oscar Nominations, Taking a Victory Lap 10 Years in the Making", "Hollywood, Disrupted: Inside the Scrappy Film Company that Made "Moonlight" and "The Witch", "Upstart Distributor A24 Is Making Indie Films Exciting Again", "Nicolette Aizenberg Joins A24 As Head Of Publicity", "A24: the brains behind 'The Bling Ring' zing", "Amazon Prime, A24 Announce Exclusive Multi-Year Streaming Deal", "Sasha Lloyd Takes Top International Post At A24", "A24 Says It Will Boost Film And TV Operations With Raise in Bank Credit Line", "A24 To Handle 'Swiss Army Man' Global Release In Company's First World Rights Move; New U.S. Release Date Update", "A24, Oscilliscope, Honora Join New BitTorrent Now Program", "A24 Lands Sundance Film 'Menashe;' First Foreign Language Film For 'Moonlight' Distributor", "The A24 Podcast by A24 on Apple Podcasts", "A24 Founder John Hodges To Part Ways With The Company", "Apple Taps A24 to Produce Slate of Films", "Showtime Networks Inks Output Film Deal With A24", "Indie Film and TV Studio A24 Explored Sale With $3 Billion Asking Price (EXCLUSIVE)", "The Highest Grossing A24 Movies Of All Time", "Netflix Wins A24 Series Package 'Beef' With 'Minari' Oscar Nominee Steven Yeun & Ali Wong From Creator Lee Sung Jin", "A24 Checks in to VivziePop's Hellish 'Hazbin Hotel', "check in at hazbinhotel.com #hazbinhotel", "Suzanna Son Joins The Weeknd & Lily-Rose Depp In 'The Idol' As HBO Hands Music Industry Drama Series Order", "Ramy Youssef Amazon Animated Series Sets Main Cast, Including Alia Shawkat, Mandy Moore, Chris Redd (EXCLUSIVE)", "Jodie Comer To Star In Series Adaptation Of Jen Beagin's Sex Therapy Novel 'Big Swiss' For HBO From A24 & Adam McKay's Hyperobject Industries", "Janelle Mone To Star As Icon Josephine Baker In A24 Series 'De La Resistance'; Streamers In The Hunt For Buzz Package", "Emma Stone's Fruit Tree, A24 to Develop 'Flicker in the Dark' Series at HBO Max (EXCLUSIVE)", "A24 Boards Shane Meadows' BBC Drama 'The Gallows Pole,' George MacKay Among Cast", "A24 Teams With Judith Godrche And ARTE For TV Comedy Series 'Icon of French Cinema', "Amazon Pilots Shoplifting Comedy 'Lifted' Starring Ivy Wolk, Veronica Taylor, Kate Godfrey & Annie Marie Elliot From Liza Mandelup, Mary Bronstein & A24", "A24, Square Peg to Develop Adrian Tomine's 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist' as TV Series (EXCLUSIVE)", "A24 Wins Hot Novel 'Memorial' By Bryan Washington For TV Division", "Greta Lee To Star In, Write & EP Series Adaptation Of Cathy Park Hong's Book 'Minor Feelings' With A24", "A24 Sets Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams Reunion, Plus Amy Adams TV Project", "Robby Hoffman Comedy 'Rivkah' In Works At Showtime", "Rashida Jones To Headline Dark Comedy Series 'Sunny' Ordered By Apple TV+ From A24", "Michelle Buteau Lands Comedy Series 'Survival Of The Thickest' At Netflix As Part Of Expanded Relationship", "Robert Downey Jr. To Co-Star In Drama Series Adaptation Of Viet Thanh Nguyen's 'The Sympathizer' For HBO And A24; Park Chan-wook Directing", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A24&oldid=1142754185, This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 05:10. Contrast that with its embrace of every grimy detail of demented dubstep nightmare Spring Breakers, for which the company went so far as to mount a sincere consider this sh*t awards campaign for James Franco. This story appears in the summer issue of GQ Style. Eddie Guy. Starring Splits Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Eggers creates a world devoid of God in this thunderous and bleak religious melodrama. Coppola: I was a little nervous about not going with a company that I knew had a track record, but I knew that they were going to really do their best. And it was like. The companys expansion into film is a natural progression as the company continues to produce scripted and non-scripted television as well as stand-up comedy specials. Theirs is a potent brand that Ive admired for a long time, and their reputation as innovative partners to talent is second to none.. TV production powerhouse Jax Media is expanding into film and tapped John Hodges, one of the founding partners of A24, as its new head of film. A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. That broke the film out., For Room director Lenny Abrahamson, working with A24 on his films campaign has been a dramatic change. He later left A24 on March 2018 to focus on future opportunities. You get a movie with them and it represents something. Correction, Sept. 30, 2015:This article originally contained a photo of John Hodges, a film producer, rather than John Hodges, co-founder of A24. Which is vanishingly rare in the film industry. Aizenberg: I was at the Q&As at the ArcLight [in Los Angeles], and I remember taking a picture of the screen, and then all of a sudden it was like every screen at the ArcLight: Spring Breakers, Spring Breakers, Spring Breakers. Its infamously irreverent official Twitter account, run by an employee named Zoe Beyer, is as likely to tweet about the Spice Girls or trash-talk Tom Cruise as it is to tweet about one of the companys own movies. They kept shutting us down. And I think it is down to companies like A24. The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement.. Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter, As one of the founding members of the New York-based company, Hodges played a key role in putting A24 on the map, culminating with last year's best picture winner, 'Moonlight.'. Katz: By the way, a thousand times out of a thousand, youre wrong. If the companys success continues apace, it might not be long before a profitable mid-budget movie no longer seems like a unicorn, and it might not be much longer until being an A24 film is the only hook a film needs. They entered into deals with DirecTV Cinema and Amazon Prime in late 2013, with some films distributed through them, and the name was changed to A24 in 2016.[3]. This fall A24 enters the awards race in a serious way for the first time, with two movies: the accessible David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour, and the Brie Larsonstarring literary adaptation Room, which recently won the coveted Peoples Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. But I feel that the fact that it was their first filmthere was a lot of idealism around the process. Leave it to Jim Jarmusch to make the coolest vampire movie ever. PARK CITY, Utah At the Sundance Film Festival here in January, executives at A24, the upstart movie and television studio, stood in the back of a makeshift theater looking as if . Distribution: Theatrical, TV, DVD-video, VOD, USA. We still dont. I think he would say something now. We tried to get the Union Square movie theaterwe didnt have a theatrical booking yet. [14], In May 2015, A24 announced that it would start a television division and began producing the USA Network series Playing House, as well as working to develop a television series that would later become Comrade Detective, produced by Channing Tatum. So I think they were hoping, and discovering, that they might be able to do that with The Witch. These films speak for themselves. The movie was Spring Breakers, it played like a Kesha music video as directed by Terrence Malick on MDMA, and it debuted to the highest per-screen average of any film released that year to date. Over the past six years I have been fortunate to work with a diverse group of talented storytellers across film and TV and look forward to continuing those collaborations in my future endeavors, added Hodges. Sacco: To engrave the Spring Breakers logo onto the glass-gun bong. The films were darlingsincluding David Michds The Rover, starring Robert Pattinson; Denis Villeneuves Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal; and Jonathan Glazers Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johanssonand, by and large, box-office underperformers. GQ Style. Memphis, Tennessee, United States. [13] That same year, A24 entered a deal with Amazon Prime, where A24-distributed films would be available on Amazon Instant Video after becoming available on DVD and Blu-ray. Jennifer Kents drama is a psychological heavyweight that examines how parents feed their demons to quell the pain. All three had grown up admiring the rich world of 90s independent cinema, and they noticed a void where those movies had once been. Coppola: That was the worst. Katz: In LAwhatever just transpired last month, you feel it in LA. Maybe we werent geniuses with Spring Breakers, but we were the ones who said, Lets put it in theaters, because we could build on that. People liked Spring Breakers. It was such an out-of-body experience. A24 is not like other entertainment companies. The outfit is new enough that the same people have been working there from the very beginning, and the consistency of their titles reflects that of their tastes. A24 Apr 2012 - May 20186 years 2 months Head of Production and Development Big Beach Films 2008 - 20124 years Greater New York City Area Development and Production Executive Michaels Goldwyn. Hollywood is run by accountants at this point. Some dissatisfied customers later accused the marketing campaign of misrepresenting the movie as a fun adolescent romp. And although it describes itself as Midnight Madness, the film didnt start until close to one oclock in the morning. Fenkel: The world kind of shifted in its direction, where the film was for an audience, and then you realize, Whoa, the movie is needed by other people. Thus far, A24 hasnt made any of the movies its released, but its made all of them A24 movies. When the film comes out in early 2016, it will arrive exclusively in theaters, and its trial by fire will be exclusively in theaters.
